Cindy Tower : Recycled/Reused Materials

"Irish Spring", Bridgeport, CT

The artist spent a week installing 25' up in a tree using a suspension ladder. Instantly, upon completion, the city removed the piece due to neighborhood complaints that an artist had left garbage in their park.

These photos were thankfully taken by Debbie Hess who happened upon the scene moments before it was dismantled.

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Outdoors and Indoors at Serge Sorroko Gallery, NYC

"Inlay", blown eggs imbedded in painted tulip tree log
Outdoors and Indoors at Serge Sorroko Gallery, NYC

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Box fans, painted silk under garments, soundtrack of birds and bees

"Fertility Hut" , New Haven, CT, 1/5
Box fans, painted silk under garments, soundtrack of birds and bees

It took seven years of collecting box window fans from Brooklyn sidewalks for the artist to complete this piece.

"Fertility Hut", 2/5

Boy entering "Fertility Hut", New Haven Public Library, New Haven, CT

"Fertility Hut", Interior view, 3/5

NOTE: At the last moment before installation, central "Viewing Hammock" was removed because building's facility manager feared homeless would take up residence inside sculpture.

"Fertility Hut" Daylight interior view, 4/5

Flowering trees painted on silk undergarments stretched on box fans with "birds and bees soundtrack

View of man entering from inside "Fertility Hut", 5/5

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Found highway ornamentation in the midwest

"Women Power", Before Shot, 1/3
Found highway ornamentation in the midwest

Transforming critical highway eyesore into a less judgmental, and celebratory piece with styrofoam plates hollowed out.

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Found highway installation and styrofoam plates

"Women Power", In Process, 2/3
Found highway installation and styrofoam plates

Collaboration with Ron Fondaw

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Found highway installation with styrofoam plates added

"Women Power", After Embellishment, 2009, 3/3
Found highway installation with styrofoam plates added

Transforming highway eyesore into a lesser judgmental and celebratory piece with styrofoam plates

Collaboration with Ron Fondaw

Serge Sorroko Gallery, New York City

Tower recreated her 1991 "Pretty Dot Piece" for the Serge Sorroko Gallery in 1998. All Paintings were made from reused clothing, car seats and objects.

Saw blade painting

Barn

Serge Sorroko Gallery, New York City

Western" inspired Installation. Artist had been a resident of the Ucross foundation in Wyoming. In response to the obsessively repetitious hilly surrounds, the artist collected any polka dotted material or circular objects to paint on from local Wyoming thrift shops (including clothing, furry toilet seat covers, sliced wood, car seats, saw-blades, hats and even eggs)

Mountain Snow Scene

Tee-pee dress painting

Wood pile

Detail showing Egg Box

"Pretty Dot Piece" Remake 1998, Serge Sorroko Gallery, New York, NY

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Oil on cowboy shirt

Trojan
Oil on cowboy shirt

Alligator painting

Hey

Hay

Installation Detail

Hat painting

Red Barn

Felicity

Art Net

Art Net, page two

"Tank", Night, San Antonio, TX

"Chio Torso"

"Black-Eyed Susans"
Tracing Paper and Hefty Garbage Bags, 10'x40'x10'

One Main Street Gallery, Dumbo (Brooklyn), New York

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Bubble Wrap, Scaffold Fence

Apparition
1989
Bubble Wrap, Scaffold Fence

Apparition was left on the Tijuana border to greet passersby

Recession Tree, 2010

"Potato Chip Torso"

"Potato Chip Torso" detail

15' x 4' x 4'

"Irish Spring"

Installing "Orb", New Haven, CT

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Ceramic

TV Suck
2006
Ceramic

Life-sized cast TV with nipple

TV Suck
2006
Ceramic

Installation shot of "Rapunzel"

Tower wore a wig as she chain-sawed this sculpture in a vacant lot in the middle of a Hasidic neighborhood in Williamsburg's Southside. It is a tradition for Hasidic women to cut their hair and wear wigs upon matrimony. Neighborhood residents are well acquainted with the myth of Rapunzel.

Shown in Brooklyn, NY at the pioneering gallery, Epoche (First Gallery in Brooklyn) located under the Williamsburg bridge in the early nineties.

"Rapunzel" detail of head

"Rapunzel" detail
1990

Chainsawed logs and altered pallet
Shown in Brooklyn, NY

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Painted and Burnt Logs

Flemish Pile
Ward's Island, New
Painted and Burnt Logs

"Flemish Pile", Ward's Island, NYC

"Flemish Pile" and tree Painting, NJ Center for Visual Arts, Summit, NJ

Transporting "Dio-Llama"
Pink Panther Brand Insulation and Steel

Installation of this piece became a performance in itself as the sculpture was driven across the country with the artist periodically taking "breaks" on truck hood.

Installed at Petrosino Park, Soho District, New York, New York

"Dio-Llama" with Italo Scanga

model for "Dio-Llama"

"Dio-Llama Study", Pink Panther Brand Insulation, 1988

"Fan Flowers", "Gardenia Exhibition", New Jersey Center for the Arts, Summit, NJ

Transforming fans into flowers

"Walk in the Woods"
Mixed

Islip Museum, Long Island, New York

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Vines, Left-over fabric from Jeffrey Deitch Project

Detail of "Walk in the Woods"
Vines, Left-over fabric from Jeffrey Deitch Project

Islip Museum, Long Island, NY

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Oil paintings and sculpture

"What To Do With Old Boyfriends", Patrice Landau Gallery, New York, NY
1994
Oil paintings and sculpture

Head sprouting Fungi (After a decade in storage)

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Wood, rope and brass

Necklace Details
Wood, rope and brass

Patrice Landau Gallery, New York, NY

"Necklace" with old boy friend pearls of wisdom

Patrice Landau Gallery, New York City

"Bottle Forest Two"

Cindy Tower Recycled/Reused Materials Wedding Dress and Mixed Media

Funnel
2009
Wedding Dress and Mixed Media
4.5' x 5' x 5'

"Funnel" is an inside-out wedding gown with seams exposed. The waste-band functions as a giant funnel or squeeze-shoot through which a wedding party is strained. The piece may simply be read as a mulch-pile of matrimony.